One Man's Actions

Romans 5:12-19 --

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man,and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in lifethrough the one man, Jesus Christ!

18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justificationand life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous

How many of you have gotten in trouble for something you didn’t do?  In other words, how many of you have been guilty by association?  Well, I was such an angel growing up, this is pretty well the only I could get in trouble.  All joking aside, our scripture this morning is telling us that we are guilty by association.  And that association is the fact that we are human.  We are all apart of humankind and that is what links or connects us to one another.  It is that association that means that we do and that we will sin.  And the result of that sin is death.  For those of who have heard of the Christian philosopher, Augustine, this may sound familiar since this scripture is the focal point of his doctrine on original sin, and I know most, if not all, have heard that phrase before.  I am not a huge proponent of that term “original sin.”  Augustine was a great thinker and wrote many great works but I believe this is doctrine is a mistake.  Here is why: While Adam’s sin may have been the first sin, I do not believe his sin to be my sin.  I do not blame Adam for my sins that I commit because they are my own doing, not his.  Instead, I think sin would be beneficial looking at from a different perspective: Our sin committed today, yesterday and tomorrow is found in Adam’s first sin.  We do not sin because Adam sinned, Adam sinned because we do.  This way of thinking may seem new or different to us because we have grown with the doctrine of original sin but this was way of thinking was not new to Jews and especially to Paul.  So we can sum up the first three verses of our scripture this morning we can say that: because of our association to Adam through being human, all of our sin is found in Adam’s first sin; and because death is the consequence of sin, it has reigned over all humans.  

As Paul always does, he offers us hope.  Verse 15 says, “But the gift is not like the trespass.  For if many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, overflow for the many!”  When I first read this scripture, my math went like this: (my sin found in Adam - God’s grace found in Christ) = 0.  In other words, it is easy to think that the two cancel each other out but there is one key word in verse 15.  Our grace doesn’t just cancel out our sin, our grace overflows!  Instead of thinking of it like 1 minus 1, it is more helpful to think of it like negative one plus 2.  The grace found in the actions Christ will always, always(!) be more than our sin.  So just as our sin is found in Adam’s sin, our grace is found in Christ’s grace.  In other words, just as all humans were involved in Adam’s sin, all humans are involved in Jesus’ perfect goodness.  Just as sin was the cause of death, Jesus’ perfect goodness conquers death and gives eternal life.  

One of the commentators I read said that this way of thinking is a good way of looking at our faith but there is one major flaw.  The flaw was that our connection to sin is not our choice, just as a child cannot choose their father, but our connection to Christ is one of choice.  It  is our decision whether to accept or reject.  It is here, this exact intersection where my faith has found its struggle recently.  Part of me wants to say that yes, it is our choice to be “saved” from our sin found in Adam but another part of me wants to say that God’s grace, love and mercy is bigger than that, that just as we cannot escape our sin, so too, is it even more impossible to escape God’s love.  I want to say that because of the actions of Christ, we now live in a state of grace, no matter what we accept or deny but I just cannot let go of the thinking that it has to be a choice we make.  I have to be completely honest with you here, I cannot not give you an answer and through all of my research, I have found that I am not alone.  This scripture has been a source of many arguments between philosophers, theologians, conservative and liberal Christian thinkers, and average, everyday lay-people.  Paul does not make himself perfectly clear here and maybe, just maybe that was his intention.  And one could even venture to say that maybe Paul did not know either.  

But I do know is that God loves you.  God loves you through the sin and God does more than cancel out our sin, his grace abounds it.  “Abound” means to exist in large numbers or quantities and one commentator even said that God’s love superabounds.  Because of our connection/association with Adam we sin and because of our connection/association with Christ we are able to live in a state of grace.  Now, that grace exists regardless, but it is up to us to realize it.  Yes, that grace is found everywhere but do you see it?  And for me, this is where the rubber meets the road: are you going to seek out God?  Do you go out of your way to find God?  I know this is hard to believe but I may not always give the best sermons, but if you are actively seeking God, you will find something from them.  I know there will be difficult times during our time here on earth, but if you are actively seeking God, you will find Him in those situations as well.  

I cannot leave here this morning without talking to you about what I experienced last weekend.  And I want to thank Joanne for filling in for me.  Cheyanne and I went to a marriage conference in Des Moines and as I often do, I was hesitant in going but it seemed important to Cheyanne so I went.  I had no idea what God had in store for me...  When I think of a marriage conference, I think of people who are struggling to stay together and I am sure there were some of those couples there last weekend but it was so much more than that.  Cheyanne and I were not struggling in our marriage but we could have been in the future.  Last weekend changed a lot of things for me personally.  I was not acting in the way God has called me to be when it came to being a husband, father or minister.  It wasn’t a complete facelift for me but there were little things that I needed to work on and last weekend showed me those things.  I told Cheyanne yesterday that I was excited to preach today in a way that I haven’t been excited for quite awhile.  My ministry had started to feel like a job or even a chore but I realized that I too, had stopped actively seeking God.  I had quit taking the prerogative in seeing God in my life.  When we as Christians stop seeking God, we stop seeing his love and grace that superabounds.  That love and grace doesn’t stop existing, we just stop seeing it.    

From this day forward, I want to encourage all of you to never stop seeing God’s grace.  Paul saw Adam, not as an individual but as one of the many humankind, and because he was one of humankind, his sin was the culmination of the sin of humankind.  Since Jesus was also made human, he too was part of humankind.  And likewise, His actions are the culmination of God’s love spread across all of humanity.  Verse 18 says it like this, “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.”  It is possible that you are sitting there today and you have either stopped seeking God or you feel that your sin is too big for God’s love.  If you have stopped seeking God, take it upon yourself to renew your faith, to breath life back into your faith.  And for those of you who think your sin is too big, know, without a shadow of a doubt that God’s grace superabounds even if you have made the choice in the past not to see it.  As you sit here this morning, God’s love and grace surrounds you.  It is up to you to decide what you do with it.  Amen.

God Bless,

Clinton